


The Pen Incident

by Jules1398



Category: The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Gen, Study Group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 07:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15310230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules1398/pseuds/Jules1398
Summary: When Brenda's pen goes missing, it seems that one of her friends must be the culprit.





	The Pen Incident

**Author's Note:**

> so this is based on an ep of community called cooperative calligraphy with some of the details changed up  
> [come say hi!](http://transjonas.tumblr.com/)

After a long evening of studying for Dr. Paige’s biology exam, Thomas and his friends decided to pack up. It had been a long day between classes, their respective after school jobs, and studying for the test. Everybody was ready to go to bed.

They all said goodnight to each other and headed toward the door, desperate for food and sleep, with the exception of Brenda, who was still rooting through her bag on the table.

“Wait!” she called, causing everyone else to turn around. “Which one of you slintheads stole my pen? The orange one with the grip on it?”

Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Calm down, Brenda. It probably just rolled away or something.”

“Rolled away?” she asked, taking a step toward him. “It just  _ rolled away _ ? Tell me, Thomas Greene, where exactly did it roll away to? Because there is no furniture for it to roll under other than the table and chairs and, since I checked the floor, it seems pretty doubtful that this pen, and the five pens that disappeared at previous study sessions, just rolled away.”

“I’m sure someone grabbed by accident,” Newt assured her. “Everyone, just check your bags real quick and if there’s no pen, we can all just let this go and go to bed.”

The ground reached into their bags and looked around, but nobody found a thing, so they headed toward the door again.

Brenda shrieked and they stopped. “Not a single one of you shanks is leaving until my pen is in my hand.”

“But I was going to get up early for a run tomorrow,” Minho grumbled.

Teresa moved to close the study room door, which was probably a good decision. They didn’t want to get kicked out of the library.

“What a convenient excuse,” she said, crossing her arms. “Everyone sit back down and Minho dump your backpack out on the table.”

Everyone but Minho reluctantly sat down. He stood in the same spot, glaring at Brenda. “I don’t have your shucking pen.”

“Then dumping your bag out shouldn’t be a problem,” she reasoned.

“It’s an invasion of my personal privacy!” he exclaimed. “If I say I don’t have your pen, then I don’t have it.”

“I mean, really you would be the most likely culprit, seeing as you’ve never been prepared for anything school related in your life,” Teresa pointed out. “You’ve definitely stolen like three of my pencils because you can’t seem to remember to bring them to exams.”

“Okay, but I checked already and I do not have her pen, so that’s that,” he argued. “Thomas, Newt, back me up here.”

Newt shook his head. “Sorry mate, she has a point.”

“There’s no harm in dumping out your bag,” Thomas said. “Just to prove that you don’t have it.”

“Fine,” he conceded, sending a glare to each of them, one by one. 

Minho unzipped his backpack and upended the contents onto the table. There were notebooks and broken pencils and an obscene amount of garbage, but no orange pen.

“Are you happy now? Because this is absolute anarchy!” he exclaimed.

Thomas wrinkled his nose at the disgusting contents of his friend’s bag. “This is gross, bro. You really need to clean this out more often.”

Newt snorted and pulled a pack of condoms out of the pile. “I guess you were wrong about one thing, Teresa. Minho does come prepared for some things.”

Minho scowled and snatched the condoms from Newt and showed it deep into his backpack before filling it up with everything else he had dumped out.

“Can we go home now?” Teresa asked, clutching her backpack tightly to her chest.

“Absolutely not!” Minho answered. “If my privacy is going to be invaded, then yours is too.”

“Let’s all relax,” Thomas said, silencing the others. “I think that’s it likely that someone had found the pen and is too embarrassed to give it back or alternatively Brenda found it at some point and doesn’t want to admit it, so let’s all close our eyes and count down from three. Whoever took the pen can give it back and then we all can go home.”

Everyone closed their eyes and counted down together. “Three, two, one.”

They opened their eyes only to find the table completely bare. Brenda scowled. “Whoever took it must have done it on purpose. Bag checks now!”

Thomas wanted to clear his name, so he went first, neatly emptying the contents of his bag on the table.

Teresa’s face broke out into a wide smile as she grabbed something from the pile. “Thomas Greene, is this a  _ password journal _ ?”

He snatched it from her hands. “It’s my sister’s,” he lied, knowing that his face had flushed deep red.

“Tommy, you don’t have a sister. Unless she’s seriously the black sheep of your family,” Newt said.

“You have to open it,” Minho ordered. “For all we know, the pen is inside.”

“But it literally makes noise when I open and close it,” Thomas attempted to reason.

Brenda shook her head. “Minho is right. You went to the bathroom once while we were here. For all we know, you stole it then and tucked it inside.”

“Please, I promise it’s not-” he was interrupted when Newt reached over and pressed the open button.

“Please enter your password,” said the voice in the journal.

Thomas sighed and brought the journal to his mouth, whispering the password to it, even though he knew that it probably wouldn’t work.

“Password is not correct. Please enter your password,” the journal repeated.

“ _ Sky High  _ is criminally underrated,” he said and listened to the twinkling sound as the journal opened and said, “Welcome back.”

Teresa set a hand on his shoulder. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are absolutely right.”

“I mean he still has a bright pink password journal,” Minho pointed out. “I think we should flip through his diary and look for clues.

“Look. No. Pen,” he gritted through his teeth before slamming the journal shut.

“Goodbye,” it said.

The others chuckled until he sent them a glare fierce enough to make them shut up.

“Who’s next?” Minho asked.

Newt stepped forward. “Why not? I don’t have anything as incriminating as a password journal in here.”

He dumped out his things and Thomas’ jaw dropped when he saw a pill bottle in the pile.

“You’re a drug addict!” he exclaimed.

Newt raised an eyebrow. “Thomas, those are my meds. Like, they were prescribed to me by my therapist.”

“Likely story,” Minho said, reading the label. “ _ Isaac Newton _ . You couldn’t even come up with a good fake name, so you used the one of some dead gay scientist!”

Newt sighed and looked at his feet. “Isaac Newton is my legal name. I just go by Newt because it’s less embarrassing that way.”

Thomas walked over to Newt and hugged him. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s not your fault.”

“Thank you,” he replied, voice laden with emotion.

“Teresa, your turn,” Brenda said. “Dump your bag or confess.”

“I didn’t take your pen. Girl to girl, you don’t need to search me,” she said.

Everyone turned to her.

“We all had to dump out our bags and you’ll do the same,” Minho growled.

“But, Minho, I-” she began.

Brenda snatched the bag from her hands and upended it onto the table. About 50 super balls fell out, bouncing off the table and rolling all over the floor.

“What the fuck…” Thomas said.

“Oh, don’t judge me Mr. password journal!” she exclaimed. “I collect them.”

“But why are you bringing them to school?” Brenda asked.

“My apartment is being fumigated,” Teresa explained. “I couldn’t just leave them to the devices of the exterminators. It’s not safe.”

“But I thought you said you left your new mixer there and that’s why you couldn’t bake with me,” Brenda replied.

“I have my priorities, Brenda,” Teresa said. “And I really just didn’t want to bake with you, seeing as you’d accuse me of stealing your pen.”

Brenda’s jaw dropped. “Well, one of you took it!”

“Where could it be then?” Minho asked. “Because, the way I see it, it’s not in any of our bags.”

“We all need to strip,” Thomas realized aloud. “That’s the only way that we’ll know nobody took it. That it’s truly just lost.”

They nodded somberly and stripped down to their underwear. No pen became visible.

“Everyone shake,” Minho commanded.

The two girls turned around and they all jumped around and shook, but still, there was no pen.

“Well, I think we can safely say that none of us has the pen,” Teresa said with a sigh. “So can I please go home and sleep?”

“It’s impossible!” Newt exclaimed, flipping the table and crawling around the ground in search of the missing pen.

The other followed, crawling around, but nobody could find a thing.

“Someone must have stolen it but who and how!” Brenda exclaimed.

“You know what,” Thomas said. “I think we should just give this up and say it vanished into thin air.”

“But that’s not-” Minho began.

“No,” Thomas interrupted. “What’s impossible is that one of us took the pen and put the others and themself through all of this klunk.”

The others nodded at what he was saying.

“If we say it vanished into thin air, then this is over and it’s fine,” he said. “It’s like three in the morning. Let’s go home and go to sleep.”

They all murmured in agreement and slipped their clothes back on and got their stuff together before walking out of the study room, completely unaware of the pen that had rolled into the air vent behind Brenda’s chair.


End file.
